The present disclosure relates to product dispensers. More particularly, it relates to manually operable dispensers for storing and dispensing disposable earplugs.
Disposable earplugs are routinely used in a wide variety of settings. In many instances, such as industrial or manufacturing environments, it is highly desirable to have a large quantity of disposable earplugs readily available at all times. Conventionally, disposable earplugs are made available in bulk form, for example by way of a large open box in which the earplugs are loosely maintained. Workers (or other users) simply reach into the box and retrieve earplugs as needed. While viable, the open box format has several distinct drawbacks. For example, a worker will invariably retrieve more than two earplugs when reaching into the box, with the extra, un-needed earplugs often times discarded without being used. Moreover, contaminants in the working environment and/or carried by the worker's hand can be introduced into the open box, leading to possible hygienic concerns.
To address the above concerns, various disposable earplug dispensers have been devised. Typically, the dispenser loosely stores a large, bulk supply of disposable earplugs and provides a manually operable mechanism intended to dispense or vend earplugs one at a time. The dispensing mechanism is conventionally a rotary type, including a wheel forming a series of discrete holes. In theory, earplugs for the bulk supply self-load into respective ones of the holes and then individually dispense from the mechanism, under the force of gravity, with rotation of the wheel. Notably, rotary dispensing mechanisms sometimes employed with earplug dispensers are akin to those found with some medication capsule dispensers or other devices intended to store and individually dispense (or vend) small, hard objects (e.g., gumballs). Given the general similarities between the size and shape of medicinal capsules and disposable earplugs, the apparent usefulness of this rotary mechanism format is well-based. However, certain physical characteristics unique to disposable earplugs present distinct concerns not fully addressed by conventional rotary-type dispensing mechanisms.
For example, some types of disposable earplugs are formed of a slow-recovery foam material, open cell or closed surface and, unlike hard objects, are compressible. Further, most disposable earplugs exhibit some degree of tackiness at their outer surface. These unique characteristics make it difficult for a conventional rotary-type dispensing mechanism to accurately and consistently dispense only a single earplug with each user-caused wheel rotation. Instead, two (or more) earplugs will self-load into a single dispensing hole and subsequently dispense in tandem; alternatively, the bulk supply will overtly prevent any one earplug from self-loading into a dispensing hole. Further, malfunctions can be prevalent, with the compressible earplugs easily becoming lodged between various moving components of the dispensing mechanism.
In light of the above, a need exists for disposable earplug dispensers, and related manually operable dispensing mechanisms, that accurately dispense earplugs one at a time with minimal instances of jamming or other malfunctions.